"Remember, the faint flickers in your helmet and your ears will serve you in the dark," Swift Spear reminds the others before he takes off into the unknown. Rushing headfirst through the choke point, he leaps deftly over the stream and stays glued to the left-hand side of the cavern wall, giving a pleased shout of "I see one! Down the hole."

more as a reminder to everyone, unless this is a new scene...Free Action: Trailblazer: sharing Night Fighting. (with our natural darkvision I, we increase to darkvision II, among other effects)

Full Action: Run 30'x4=120' ft. Reduced movement sure is annoying. I'll be flat-footed until I take another half or full action.Free Action: Talk

[quote author=Mister Andersen link=topic=3868.msg78460#msg78460 date=1286563636]Whomever's through the choke point first this round will *just* catch sight of the hard meat's tail disappearing down a hole.[/quote]

Swift Spear charges boldly -- foolishly -- into the cave, eager to claim the first kill and secure his ascension to adulthood. But as he closes on the hole, the second of the hard meat erupts out of hiding and slams him brutally against the tunnel wall.

Seeing this, Tusk also races eagerly into the lair, jumping across the stream but coming to a halt a little away from his fellow fledgling, obviously not about to interfere with Spear's hunt, but ready to make his own claim should Spear prove insufficient.

Tough Nut and Falling Leaf both pause, aware of movement outside the cavemouth they'd entered through. His chest swelling, Tough Nut lays claim to this one and so Leaf also ventures further into the cave to seek her destiny.

Three-Eyes is the last to enter the testing ground, but he is perhaps also the most observant. As he draws near to Tusk, he can make out the sound of the other beasts moving, their tell-tale auras masked by the rock. However, he's certain that including the one facing Spear and the second about to be ambushed by Tough Nut, there are at least seven of them up here. One more than Thunderstrike had said there would be. Perhaps he was lying to lull his students into a false sense of security...

Thunder Strike pulls his entire caster mount off his shoulder and drives it onto one of the branches of the tree he's sheltering behind. The movement prompts more of the rapid-fire plasma shots from the unseen opponent.

As Step moves stealthily towards her sensei, she hears the unmistakable scream of the hard meat coming from her left.

Just to reiterate, everyone's benefitting from the Contempt feat (unless the scene changed somewhere along the line, in which case y'all get it again now).

As we're starting into a combat, I'm also invoking Crush Them!, so everyone's also got +2 on their melee and unarmed attack checks.

Three-Eye begins setting up a 2-round ambush, unless his old one's still running. I assume by "2 rounds" it means essentially "2 full actions", so I stand and roar, giving the impression that I'm far too preoccupied bellowing to defend myself. I assume as well that I can take Contempt's free attack even while prepping my quickie ambush, yes?

If my old ambush is still queued up (the argument in favor is that I've stayed more or less in position near and behind Broken Tusk, letting him draw attention while I stay ready to kack something), let me know.

Step sees her sensei up ahead, but, hearing the shriek off to her left, she pauses, settling back into the bushes. As she draws her chakram back to throw, she lets out a pained yowl, as in the manner of a wounded animal.

OOC: Yeah, the whole standing and roaring thing is pretty much the antithesis of an actual ambush. Change your movement to end up against the left wall on the same row as Tusk -- basically using him as a stalking horse -- and we're in business, and we'll just hand-wave the establishing of the battle plan as having happened during the climb up.

Broken Tusk curls his lip in annoyance at Spear's good fortune, but holds back, confident that more will show themselves soon. His spins his combi-stick in the close confines of the cave, then raises it in a fighting stance.